“Make sure you order one half with just cheese,” she told her. “Kristi has decided she no longer eats meat.”
“I love that kid,” Shayla said.
“And thanks again for putting up with our little impromptu meeting.”
“You know you all are welcome anytime. Just tell Celeste to use her inside voice next time.”
Laughing, Leslie hugged her good-night before Shayla retreated behind the counter. Leslie picked up a couple of oatmeal-and-cranberry cookies from The Jazzy Bean’s healthier sampling of baked goods. If they were having pizza tonight she might as well go all out and let the girls have dessert, too.
Even though she lived within walking distance of Shayla’s coffee shop, she had driven here straight from the office. She backed out of the slanted parking spot and in less than five minutes pulled into the driveway of the house she’d lived in since marrying Braylon eleven years ago. A part of her was happy to have her daughters growing up in their father’s childhood home, but there was another part of her that dreaded walking through the door.
It had been an ongoing struggle for nearly two years. Being in that house surrounded by memories of a husband who was no longer here, a life that no longer existed, was nothing short of torture. Some nights it took every ounce of strength she possessed just to find the courage to fall asleep in her own bed.
Which was why Leslie had finally decided to put action to the thoughts that had been swirling in her brain for the past couple of months. She had requested a meeting with her boss and was going to ask for a transfer to the company’s Houston office.
Leslie closed her eyes and sucked in a deep breath. “The girls will like Houston,” she said to the empty car.
It would be nice if she really believed that.
She had grown up in Houston, and even though it was only six hours away by car, she only went home about once a year. It hadn’t always been easy growing up in those rough inner-city streets. But at least Houston wasn’t filled with so many heartbreaking memories. Braylon’s death had created a pall over just about everything that she had grown to love about Gauthier over the years. She needed to break free from it all.
Leslie grabbed her laptop bag from the trunk and entered the house through the side door that led to the kitchen. The moment she walked in, her legs were surrounded by bony five-year-old arms.
“Mommy!” Kristi exclaimed. She pulled away and looked up at Leslie with those deep brown eyes that looked so much like Braylon’s. “Why are you just getting home? It’s already dark.”
“I’m sorry, sweetie.” Leslie pulled at one of her bouncy curls. “Mommy had a late meeting at work, and then I had to meet with a couple of other mommies at Auntie Shayla’s restaurant.”
“Cassidy said it’s a coffee house and café, not a restaurant.”
“Well, excuse me,” Leslie said. “I had a meeting at Auntie Shayla’s coffeehouse and café. Where’s Cass?”
“In the living room. She’s teaching Brittany how to twerk.”
“What?”
Leslie tossed her bag on the kitchen table and rushed to the living room. She found Cassidy and Brittany Meyer, the sixteen-year-old babysitter she’d hired a few weeks ago, in the middle of the living room with their hands on their thighs and their rear ends in the air, gyrating like a couple of washing machines. Buster made figure eights between their legs.
“Excuse me, but what is going on here?” Leslie called over the music.
“Hey, Mom,” Cassidy said.
“Hi, Mrs. Kirkland,” Brittany said with a wave.
“What’s going on here?” Leslie asked again, pointing to the television that had a YouTube video of someone giving instructions on how to do the dance move that Leslie had expressly forbidden either of her girls from doing.
She turned to face the girls and folded her arms over her chest. “You know the rules, Cassidy. This is a no-twerking household.”
“But Brittany said that white girls can’t twerk, so I wanted to show her that she could learn to twerk if she really wanted to.”
Lord, help her.
“Sorry, Mrs. Kirkland,” Brittany said. She pointed the remote at the TV and the screen went black. “I didn’t know about the no-twerking rule.”
“No twerking and no playing with the stove,” Kristi said, eating the oatmeal cookie that was supposed to be dessert.
“It’s okay,” Leslie said, waving off Brittany’s concern. “I didn’t think I needed to say anything, since these two already knew about the rule.” She gave Cassidy and Kristi another stern look as she handed Brittany a twenty-dollar bill. “Thanks for staying a little later today.”
“No problem. I’m sorry I can’t watch them for you tomorrow.”
“Don’t worry about it. The girls will be going to their aunt’s.”
“We’re going to Aunt Shayla’s tomorrow?” Kristi asked, jumping up and down in excitement.
Leslie walked Brittany to the front door just as the pizza deliveryman was pulling up. There were more excited screams at having pizza for dinner.
Other than the dozen times Leslie had to reprimand Kristi for trying to feed Buster pepperoni—she’d apparently turned back to a carnivore overnight—dinner went off without incident. By the time they were all fed and showered, Leslie was dead on her feet, but it still would be a few hours before she could crawl into bed. She had a ton of work she’d been forced to bring in from the office.
She was so determined to do it all, but Leslie knew this superwoman thing was nothing but a facade. She couldn’t do it all. And if she didn’t slow down, sooner or later, she was going to pay for it.
Her arms crossed over her chest, Leslie meandered around the science lab as she waited her turn with Cassidy’s science teacher at GEMS’s Biannual Parent/Teacher Conference night. The first conference of the year, which had been scheduled in the fall, had been preempted by a tropical storm that veered toward the Mississippi coastline just before making landfall, but still caused heavy flooding in Gauthier and surrounding towns. For some parents tonight would be the first time they got the chance to meet with teachers this school year.
An official event wasn’t necessary for parents and teachers to meet and discuss school happenings. Leslie would guess that most parent/teacher conferences took place in the grocery store or the bank or the pharmacy. The majority of the teachers at GEMS had lived in Gauthier their entire lives. They’d gone to high school with Braylon, or they attended the same church, or they were regulars at Shayla’s coffeehouse. It was the nature of living in a small town.
And then there was Gabriel Franklin. The outsider.
He wasn’t the first nonlocal to teach at GEMS, but the handful of teachers who had come to Gauthier from other cities had blended in rather easily and didn’t make many waves.
Mr. Franklin had begun procuring his reputation as a skilled but demanding teacher just a few days into his first week at GEMS. He had challenged the students—and thus the parents—by requiring more time at the dinner table doing homework. It had been a shock to everyone’s system.
Some parents had complained, but others had agreed that Mr. Franklin’s way of teaching would help the children in the long run. The fact that he was a bit of a charmer hadn’t hurt, either. He’d won over half the hearts in Gauthier during the first PTO meeting of the year, when he’d given an impassioned plea to the parents, daring them to push their children so they could meet their fullest potential.